s if to
herald the green itself, church bells and carillons regularly sound
over New Haven's gracious and amply proportioned green in the
center of town. A distinctive presence for more than 350 years, the
New Haven Green not only serves as a focal point of religious,
civic, and commercial activity in this coastal town on Long Island
Sound, but as a relic of the oldest formally planned community in
America.
Settlement of the mercantile port began in
1638 by a company of English colonists who came from London via
Boston under the leadership of the merchant Theophilus Eaton and
the Reverend John Davenport, a Puritan minister. The new town,
originally called Quinnipiac, was laid out by 1641 on a nine-square
grid a plan reminiscent of ancient Roman military camps covering an
area measuring a half-mile square. While the eight surrounding
squares were divided into house lots, the center square was
reserved for the green. This common land was the site of the first
meetinghouse and a burying ground. Because New Haven was envisioned
as a thriving commercial port, however, the green was also
conceived as a trade center and town square, and was in fact known
as "the market place" into the 1700s. It contained the town's watch
house (built by 1645), the jail, and the first school, all of which
are believed to have been located near the corner of present-day
College and Elm streets.
A
series of improvements to the New Haven Green indicate that the
common was regarded by townspeople as an important asset early in
its history. Grass was planted by 1654, and shade trees, including
elms and sycamores, were added by the 1750s. Institutional
architecture was another attribute: after New Haven was declared
co-capital, with Hartford, of the Colony of Connecticut in 1701,
the Connecticut State House (1717) was built on the green's
northwest side.
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